


Memories

by FloraOne



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Crystal Tokyo, F/M, Ficlets, Hurt/Comfort, R, Romance, Silver Millennium, anyway a lot of this will be a little like Becoming I guess, but of the softer kind, classic, little snippets across time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25515538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloraOne/pseuds/FloraOne
Summary: A series of snippety ficlets exploring Mamoru's very own Usamamo-memories throughout time. From Silver Millennium to Crystal Tokyo. Written for Usamamo Week 2020 on Tumblr.
Relationships: Chiba Mamoru/Tsukino Usagi
Comments: 58
Kudos: 80





	1. Theme 1: Silver Millennium

**Author's Note:**

> So I wasn't gonna write anything for this Usamamo week. The pandemic and social isolation that comes with it is affecting my creativity like crazy and I was gonna be a spectator for this. Then I had an idea yesterday and dismissed it.
> 
> Anyway. I started writing this 40 minutes ago. My beta is amazing and looked at it five minutes ago. So, I guess I'm doing this after all.
> 
> Please don't expect too much. These will be tiny little more-or-less-interconnected ficlets. None longer than my kisses. But maybe you'll appreciate them! (And I would love to hear if you did. Actually, I think I would love to hear from you period, lol.)

* * *

Memories  
A Series of Shortest Stories Written For Usamamo Week 2020

Theme 1: Silver Millennium

* * *

It was the most peaceful thing he knew.

When the morning at last filtered through the tall, gilded windows, threatening to take away what he cherished most in a rustle of white gossamer fabric and hushed goodbyes, he kept it all out for a little while longer with the simplest of all actions.

He'd curl against her, her naked body warm and sleep-swollen and ethereal, and then flick the stark white sheet over both their heads to her soft whines (she really did not like mornings, and it swelled his heart in ways he could not truly comprehend).

"It's not morning, yet," he'd whisper conspiratorially against the shell of her ear, his voice rough from sleep, bent over her warmth completely to shield her from the filtered light, and traced the curve of her waist down to her hips and thighs almost absentmindedly, if it weren't for the reverence in his touch.

She'd grumble and scrunch up her nose in a way that made his heart ache in adoration, and then she'd turn and snuggle into him and he'd trace the mirror-inverted embroidery of his pillows as it was painted into her cheek overnight.

They were stolen moments, and yet it was where he belonged. It was with whom he belonged to. These were to be the best moments of this life.

"Let's run away," she'd whisper, and blink her eyes open at last. Her eyes thick with sleep, and the morning light would filter through the white sheet in a way that made her very skin seem even softer, even warmer, his whole world painted in soft pastel and reduced to him and her beneath these sheets.

"Let's run away today," she'd say with a sigh, and then she'd reach out, comb her fingers through his hair, scratching down his scalp, and he would shudder and close his eyes and lean into her touch, revelling in it as if it were the last time he might feel it.

"Let's," he'd whisper back, and tuck them underneath their cocoon a little longer.

It was always a lie, but in his little sheltered world of sheets and skin and morning light, of hands brushing sweet caresses in a way that grounded his very soul, his ring on a chain against her naked skin the color of her insignia and his world alike, they could pretend a little longer that it was a choice they were capable of making.

* * *

Some memories were more impossible than others.

Like bouncing up and down on a mattress the size of a room, laughing in a way he never had and never would again, careless when there was so very much to care about, when it was so very dangerous.

Bouncing even more and tumbling into sheets so much softer than anything he'd ever felt, and whenever he dropped, he'd drop much slower than physics should ever mean to allow.

It felt like floating. It felt like flying. It felt like freedom. It was a feeling that was captured in his soul, and that came in many ways.

Echoes of impossible memories. The sensation of his hair not dropping to his forehead like he was used to, but brushing against his face so very softly, so very slowly, as it landed more than dropped. As if her whole world was caressing him like she did, soft and meaningful and comforting.

The feeling of her hand in his as he led them across waxed floors to the most haunting of melodies, and the way she rose so much higher when he lifted her than she should, the way she felt too light as he dipped her, the way it felt as if they could twirl right into the stars, around and around until they took flight when they danced.

The pressing weight in his heart remembering how it was to have a wife, and wanting one just like her, only like her. The painful burden of remembering something that felt free, and yet never was at all.

It all taught him to imagine how it might feel not to be alone.

* * *

When little Mamoru Chiba pressed his eyes closed in the dead of night, in a dark room filled with twin beds and other shifting bodies, he tried to remember his parents.

He tried to remember really hard, his brow scrunched and his jaw clenched, tried to poke his mind right in the murky holes that wouldn't open up no matter how hard he pressed.

Maybe if he remembered, he could see this was all a big mistake. All a big misunderstanding. His parents weren't dead after all, he just had to remember his way back to a place where he belonged.

He'd tried over and over again, glaring at the shadows that moved across the dark ceiling and the dawn that broke through the yellowed, tacky laced curtains in the mornings. He'd tried and tried for years.

In those nights he had never remembered his parents. But searching for a place he belonged night after night, he'd dreamt up an impossible world, an impossible place, an impossible hope.

Long before he remembered a man called Endymion and the face of a woman that he loved so much he would die for her even when he didn't remember her, he remembered the feeling of experiencing a gravity so light it felt like he could float. Silver hair swaying in the night. The warmth of arms around him he never wanted to leave. A voice against the shell of his ear asking him if he can stay a little longer tonight, and if he can stay forever and never leave.

Long before he remembered a place called Elysion, or the heartbreak that came with a love so forbidden that it killed, he remembered her soft sigh of a smile beneath crisp white sheets, the morning sun filtering through them as he pulled them over his head and that of the woman beside him. The sensation of his hand stroking down soft, clean skin that smelled so, so good. He remembered soft giggles as they hid. He remembered feeling wanted. He remembered the feeling of belonging.

Long before he remembered anything but silhouettes against white sheets and a shadow asking for his help with tears in her eyes, Mamoru remembered how it felt to be loved.

And maybe that was the cruellest feeling all, as he lay alone in a twin bed and a choked up throat as he forbade himself to cry, and pulled the tacky, colorful astroboy sheets that weren't his over his head, and pretended there was someone lying with him underneath. Someone warm who would stroke their hands through his hair and make him feel like he belonged.

He remembered, and he yearned for it.

* * *


	2. Theme 2: Sailor Moon & Tuxedo Mask

Memories  
A Series of Shortest Stories Written for Usamamo Week 2020

Theme 2: Sailor Moon & Tuxedo Mask

* * *

His lungs burned with the sheer speed that he ran for her.

He was inhumanly fast. Nothing he wasn't used to, and yet the strain was powerful, his acceleration impossible. He ran as if for his life, his cape cracking like the leather tassel of a whip behind him.

He pressed his feet harder against the ground, his knees popping with the sheer velocity at which he moved.

She didn't see. She was scolding the enemy in one of her speeches, her back turned.

It was instinct at this point. And he did not intend to fight it.

Sailor Moon shrieked, ducking from the icy projectiles in the front but not the ones aimed at her back. Moon Stick raised, the danger absolutely misjudged. Too naive. Too trusting. Too brave.

He fought down the sudden panic that flared in his chest, at full war with the frustration that burned deep and familiar. Burned whenever she was careless, whenever she was reckless, whenever he was terrified something might happen to her.

It was a feeling he didn't quite like to dwell on. A feeling altogether too confusing.

And so instead he ran. Caught her. Snatched her up straight out of the air and felt her connect heavily with his chest, her arms reflexively shooting around his shoulders, fingers digging into the jacket of his tuxedo, her whole body sagging in relief.

It was clear she felt unconditionally safe in his arms, and it was another thought he best not dwell on.

Her eyes were huge, her gasp shocked, when she saw the crystalline structure meant for her heart shatter against the steel beam he'd just snatched her away from. The sound so loud it hurt, the spike the width of a leg now raining down to the street in pieces.

"Oh god," she gasped. Was she imagining what it would have looked like lodged into her torso?

He didn't. He couldn't.

He grabbed her too hard, but her own gloves flexed against his jacket, her body tensing, moving closer to him in his arms.

He kept running. Didn't let her go. He should have.

"Tuxedo Mask…" she finally mumbled when it had been a while. When he was heaving and out of breath.

It woke him as if from a stupor. He nearly dropped her.

But he couldn't still the weird, frantic panic in his thudding heart. So utterly unwanted, so utterly distracting, so utterly foolish.

The look in her eyes was searching.

And yet she didn't move, just kept gazing at his eyes as his gloves moved her tiara. Didn't twitch, so naively trusting as she was, as he tucked it free and removed it.

A task itself that should not be possible. It should only lift for her. At most for someone she trusted unconditionally, and it was more fodder for his mind to block off and shut away safely.

Her forehead underneath was empty, and he frowned.

He could have sworn. He could have sworn there needed to be something there. Something on the edges of his memory. Something he'd forgotten.

He could have sworn it was something important. Something warmer than the rest of her skin. Something that tickled when he kissed it.

It hurt his head even when he pressed his lips to her forehead as if to search for the sensation.

It never came. What came was her soft gasp, and her hands flying to wrap around his wrists, gloves on gloves.

He frowned. Pressed harder.

Her voice was breathless, when she spoke. Trembling. Shuddering. Her hands slung around his wrists so tight it was starting to hurt.

"If you remember this," she started, and he frowned harder. Moved his mouth against her. His nose brushed into her soft fringe.

"...why can't you remember him?"

He snarled and pushed away.

"Mamoru…"

His glare was surely withering. Accusing. Betrayed. "That's not my name," he growled, took a further step back, swiveling on the rooftop.

He made it to the edge, ready to jump off in a dramatic show, vanishing dramatically into thin air before he would have hit the ground. And yet he stilled.

"Kunzite wants to kill you," his traitorous mouth confessed instead.

And like the trusting fool she was, she simply shrugged, and it made the painful knot of anger (or panic. Or confusion. Or horror. Or _something_ ) swell back up in his chest and stretch his lips into an angry grimace.

"I figured," she said as if it was something trivial he'd disclosed to her instead of a dire warning.

The glare he sent her way would have sent half the youmas in the Dark Kingdom running, and yet she didn't even blink. Didn't move her too trusting eyes away.

"Will you let him?" she asked, head tilted, voice sweet.

He huffed. Turned back around. Jumped.

Vanished.

Left her.

"I won't," he promised the ghoulish, empty, echoing halls of Queen Beryl's dark Kingdom. Venom in his breaking, snarling voice.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why, yes, I am thinking a ton of my Evil!Endymion WiP these days, why ever would you ask?
> 
> Anyway, by now you probably guessed I'm half-way cheating. So yeah, all of them are kind of "mixed" and kind of not. Still dressed as tux, though, lol.
> 
> Anyway! Thank you so much to Antigone2 who is hosting this year! There are a ton of artists and writers contributing, and it's all fucking fantastic, so please go have a look. So yeah, check out everyone's brilliance, you can find it all on tumblr! Idesofnovember is the where you find it all ;)
> 
> ALSO HI GUYS I'M SO HAPPY YOU'RE HERE!


	3. Theme 3: Mix and Match

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for each and every of your reviews! I see them and they keep me going and I am so immensely motivated by them you have no idea! Thank you thank you thank you!
> 
> Today's theme is actually Usamamo, but I want to keep them a bit in chronological order, and so I switched the themes. You're still gonna get Usamamo tho, don't worry!
> 
> So yeah, here's a little thing about a canon thing. (um. lol.) A canon thing I wanted to make Usagi a bit less obvious about lol.

* * *

Memories  
A Series of Shortest Stories Written for Usamamo Week 2020

Theme 3: Mix and Match

* * *

"He vanishes," Usagi said, a deep frown sketched into her brow.

It was all quite misplaced and out of context, of course. At least she was supposed to be pouring over her math homework, which was laying open in front of her, spilled all across her coffee table in chaotic disarray. But when had she ever done that — especially when there were such other much more pressing and much more complicated problems at hand than stupid school.

Luna, twitching awake on the cushion beside her, lashed her tail. "What the hell are you talking about, Usagi-chan?" she mumbled with a giant kitty yawn.

"Moonlight Knight, of course!" she answered with a stern, reprimanding tone, tapping her pink Sailor Moon pen impatiently against her empty page. Wasn't it obvious?

Maybe it wasn't. Luna fell onto her little kitty chin and promptly proceeded to regard her with that look she came to know quite well. That one somewhere between utter exasperation, extreme befuddlement, and deep, deep disappointment.

"Of course," Luna said in that nasal voice of hers and didn't at all sound sincere, so Usagi threw her a look.

"He vanishes into thin air," Usagi tried again, in her Serious Voice and with her Serious Face, and this time, Luna indulged her. Hopped onto her coffee table and primly sat very daintily on her front paws, even if it was indeed right in a convenient patch of sun.

"I haven't noticed that," Luna said slowly.

Usagi gaped at her.

"You haven't?!" she screeched.

"Are you sure you aren't just seeing things?" Luna said patiently.

Usagi glared and threw her pen at her cat, earning her another of those Looks.

* * *

Luna thought she was wrong. But frankly, Luna was wrong a lot, and so Usagi ignored her.

She did wait to address him, though. About a day, that is.

Pivoting on her feet where she knew he would walk right into her, she fixed him with what was possibly quite a scary look.

At least he reacted that way, stopped with eyebrows raised before he collided with her.

"Odango—" he started, and she immediately interrupted him.

She clutched her leather briefcase a little tighter, and her school skirt rustled a little in the breeze, but she steeled her shoulders and went to attack.

"Are you Moonlight Knight?" she asked, bent forward in her most investigative look.

And yes. Of course he couldn't be Mamoru. She _wanted_ him to be Mamoru. Desperately. But she saw Mamoru stand right beside Moonlight Knight at the VR arcade, and so she knew he couldn't be. But she _also_ saw him come back from the dead three times now, so who was she to say what could and couldn't be.

Mamoru reacted about as well as she'd expected. Meaning, his eyebrows lifted even higher than that time she'd tried to convince him he was a reborn prince destined to be her lover via hand-drawn images of the two of them complete with heart eyes and an evil queen at their crayon backs.

His chin tilted down at her in a snap-like fashion. He probably thought she'd lost her marbles.

"Ex _cuse_ me?" His voice rose with all the incredulity.

And so Usagi steeled her shoulders and simply asked again. Repeat.

"Are you Moonlight Knight?"

The second time, it even came off a bit more self-assured, and less creepy. _Maybe_.

Perhaps still a bit suspicious. Because who knew? After all, she wouldn't admit to being Sailor Moon either if anyone straight up asked her.

He recoiled a bit, blinked. Looked down the street behind her - empty safe for a few chirping birds and a few pedestrians, she'd gotten up _early_ for this, ok? - and back to her.

"Are you ok?" he asked, and when he started to look her up and down, those eyebrows in his hairline, she pressed her lips together and just did it again.

"Moonlight Knight. Are you—"

"That weirdo with the white rose in that outfit from the kids show?" he finished for her, and though his look was still absolutely incredulous, she saw the echo of that smirk on his lips that she both missed and dreaded and… Well.

She frowned. Confused. A kids show?

But he seemed to have read her confusion on her face.

"Gekko Kamen?" he elaborated, his lips finally quirking into that half-smile, and she inhaled to steel herself against its impact on her a little. "I watched it when I was a kid."

Wait.

Granted, it took a little to register. But then it did.

"Gekko Kamen? _Gekko Kamen_?" she screeched, horrified. "MOONLIGHT MASK? Are you _fucking kidding me_?"

Apparently he was unperturbed by her outburst by now, because he barely reacted. Simply shrugged in that 'how should I know why people are weird?'-way.

She narrowed her eyes. "You SURE you aren't Moonlight Knight?"

His look morphed just a little. Just barely. Now reading something like 'how should I know why _you_ are weird?'

It made her skin tingle in discomfort coming from him. So she dismissed it. Let him go with a nevermind, a huff, and another pivot on her Mary Janes.

He did look after her with a soft, yet absolutely confused smile. That was _something_ , at least, she reckoned.

When she arrived home way later, she watched the first episode of that show on youtube. Open-mouthed. Appalled. Amazed.

* * *

But next time she saw Moonlight Knight, she tried again.

"Adieu!" He'd called with that smirky little smile she'd recognize across _lifetimes_ , she _would_.

And started after him as he began to shimmer.

"WAIT," she cried.

And he did wait. Solid once again, that mask covering his mouth and nose, but she would recognize these eyes anywhere, she _would_.

"Mamoru?" she asked.

His facial muscles moved. Maybe, just maybe, he was smiling underneath that thing. It looked like he did.

"Do you want me to be him?" he said easily.

And it made her heart thud. "Yes," she shot out.

A tilt of his head, and his black fringe moved across his forehead. She couldn't help but follow the movement with her eyes.

"Do you think I am?"

She huffed.

...She saw the two of them in a room. He was more patient with her than Tuxedo Mask had often been. More patient than _Mamoru_ had _ever_ been. He didn't act like he thought the girls were mere civilians when she'd rescued them from that way-too-pretty sakura tree Cardian. He'd acted like he knew who they were.

But Mamoru didn't remember...

She said nothing, instead she frowned.

"Gekko Kamen is a kids show," she said, her lips in a pout, her voice all misplaced accusation.

"It is", he said easily. Again. "The protagonist wears garb reminiscent of the Middle East. He fights in the name of the moon. And rides a motorcycle."

It fit. It fit so badly.

She could picture it. She could picture a little Mamoru in his orphanage, with those vague dreams of a prince with darker skin smack in the middle of the earth and a princess from the Moon, who this silly show would speak to on a very deep, confusing level.

She frowned. She frowned harder.

After a while, Moonlight Knight tilted his head at her in farewell in that too-familiar way, and vanished.

* * *

It kept her awake for the next few nights. And when she did sleep, she dreamt about it. And when she looked blankly into her workbooks at school, she doodled it.

The next time she saw him, it wasn't a question anymore.

"You're his memories," she announced to him after Minako, Ami, and the Cardian were gone.

He turned, that wrong white cape swishing, shimmering in the lamp light in the empty, dark park.

And yet, it still threw her when he answered so easily yet again.

"I am," he said with a nod.

She exhaled sharply. " _How_?" she cried.

He shrugged. "I don't quite know," he said, and it was so, so earnest. More earnest than Mamoru would ever be, and how… _how_?

"But…" she started, and let go. Instead she took a step closer, until she needed to lift her chin and look up at him.

"Everything?" she asked instead.

Moonlight Knight smiled. And then he shimmered.

She was about to shout, to stop him from vanishing, but he didn't.

And then she gasped, thrown.

He was less corporeal. More like a ghost. Like a hologram from the futuristic korean dramas she watched. Like a memory.

And he was Endymion.

Usagi gasped so hard she almost choked.

The last time she'd seen him like that, he'd tried to kill her, and she'd tried to kill him. And it looked etched into his translucent face, sadness tensing his jaw.

For the first time, he looked like himself. Tense, guarded. Usagi's heart throbbed.

"Everything," he whispered.

She was exhaling, looking him up and down with too much trepidation, and as if he could sense it, he changed again.

And then he shimmered again, and he was Mamoru. Atrocious Ugly Green Jacket Mamoru. Cocky Ugly Sunglasses Mamoru. "Everything," he repeated with that patient, saddened smile, as he took the glasses off.

They vanished into black smoke when he opened his hand.

The tears _sprang_ to her eyes.

He took a step towards her. It didn't quite close the gap.

She blubbered. Her face was wet and her gloves weren't quite so good at rubbing her face. "How... how…" _How do I get you whole? How do I get you in him? How do I get you_ back _?_

His smile was downright pained. He somehow understood her even if she didn't get her voice back over all that flooding her eyes decided to be appropriate that tried to make her choke.

And then he moved again, and she would have wanted to hold her breath, but it just made her sob harder.

She barely felt his hands on her cheeks, as he cradled her face. She felt a slight pressure, a cold sort of breeze, none of the warmth that came with Tuxedo Mask's touch. His touch. One she missed so very badly.

"I don't know," he said sincerely. Earnestly. Hopelessly. "I tried."

"Since when?" She hiccuped.

His hand moved, but she didn't feel it.

"Since the start," he said. His blue eyes see-through. Wrong even when the gaze was so right.

"I remained when everything came back together," he said, looking down at her. Pretty black hair falling into his pretty blue eyes in that ugly green jacket. The light of the streetlamp shone right through him.

"He didn't remember, and then I was here," he said in a way that meant 'I'm sorry.'

"Why?" she cried. Didn't dare to touch him back. Didn't dare to test how it felt.

"I don't know." He shook his head. "I have theories."

She hiccuped again. Her tears were dripping down her chin, down her throat, down her fuku. Drip, drip, drip.

"What…" she hic-ed. "What— What theories?"

He lowered his brows, all sympathy. "I'm... quite partial about my memories. Maybe something in me rebelled to not let them vanish completely."

At that, her eyes widened in horror. She had done this to him after all.

But he only shrugged. "Or maybe I was terrified to leave you facing this alone."

Really, this was a rollercoaster. The soft words as much as his eyes made her heart thump. And sob again.

He shrugged, shot her somewhat of an apologizing half-smile. "Or maybe I really really liked that kid's show."

She snorted.

"Or maybe I love you too much to let you go."

Her heart hurt. It hurt. And she cried harder. Ugly sobs wrecking her body.

She knew this wasn't him. Not really. Not completely. Mamoru didn't talk like that. Endymion had. In the very beginning. Somewhere in a haze of too-old memories she knew that once upon a time he had. But Mamoru didn't talk like that. Was more reserved like that. More guarded.

This was the kind of Mamoru she would daydream. The kind that would be made for her. But it was missing the most important things. The most aggravating, amazing things.

She wanted him back.

And yet she wanted this one, too. She wanted all of him.

His lips felt weird, like a butterfly's wings brushing against her face trying but failing to kiss the tears away from her cheeks and it only made her cry harder.

"How do I get you back?" She sobbed out into her gloves, paralyzed, hugging herself so she wouldn't hug him.

"You already have me."

"No!" She wailed. "Like—"

"I'm a stubborn bastard," he interrupted her. "I'm dense. I think you have to make me understand. At least that's my best guess."

And with that she choked, lifted her wet face back up.

He was Moonlight Knight again. But without the Mask. He was Mamoru in a silly, arabian nights costume.

Oh...

* * *

With renewed resolve, she waited for Mamoru at their corner, trying to intercept him again before Natsumi had a chance.

She clutched her single rose to her chest.

She would make him remember. She would make him fall in love with her even if he didn't remember. She would.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I guess this one was a fix-it of sorts? Anyway, Moonlight Knight and Sailor Moon on main, I guess almost all of them… not on main lol. I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> ALSO. Gekko Kamen is a thing. Moonlight Knight was a reference to it. Original live action show from the 50s, remake in the 80s, even an anime I think? Anyway IT EXISTS AND IT'S HILARIOUS AND YOU CAN FIND IT ON YOUTUBE. And the subtext being that Mamoru's subconscious chooses THAT ONE to morph into it just… amazing, ok? xD
> 
> Anyway, again, this is part of Usamamo Week, and please check out all the contributions on Antigone2's tumblr (it's idesofnovember!) She's collecting all of them there, and they're amazing!


	4. Theme 4: Crystal Tokyo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm going in order of the canon seasons, so, here's today's theme Crystal Tokyo for you! And again, thank you for ALL THE KIND WORDS OF THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE REVIEWING! You have my heart! It's bubblegum-pink right now and beating hard for you!

* * *

Memories  
A Series of Shortest Stories Written for Usamamo Week 2020

Theme 4: Crystal Tokyo

* * *

The hologram beeped as if to taunt him. He glared at it a little fruitlessly, and it made that noise again. Sometimes, he honestly missed an Esc button.

Too proud to call Ami for help, he swiped at the image again, and groaned when it enlarged even further, instead of closing.

He rubbed his eyes and sighed, ready to thunk his head against the table.

He tilted his head, his neck cracking audibly, and taking a calming breath, he tried again. This time, it finally closed.

It really was a feat of pure willpower that he didn't yelp in victory. And this time when he opened a new window, he didn't even attempt to enlarge it. Instead, he typed in a few more commands, and finally, the data ran. Visibly. Comparing planet after planet and shadow after shadow for him. He wanted to groan in relief.

And yet he startled violently when soft, cool hands settled against both sides of his neck, and slipped into his collar.

Only when they were followed by a set of perfect, warm lips against his hair did he relax.

"You're awfully tense, Mamo-chan," his vision of a wife mumbled into his lighter, purple-shimmering hair, her elegant, silk nightgown shifting with her every movement.

She didn't comment on the late hour. She'd stopped commenting the hour a while ago. His eyes flicked to the console and hus eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

He hadn't noticed at all it had gotten quite _so_ late.

"I'm sorry," he started to stay. But her hands stroked tenderly against his throat, and she shook her head in his hair and just slung her arms around him. And stayed.

The data ran in technicolor in the otherwise darkened room. Reflecting in blue light off the hologram and onto them, looking for darkness. Looking for his deepest fear.

* * *

Sometimes, King Endymion wondered if he'd gotten the short end of the stick.

That is, if he was the one version of a possibly infinite versions of Mamoru Chibas in this very predicament. The one that had lived to endure what might be in his future beforehand. The one with a sneak-peek of a crystalline sarcophagus holding his comatose wife, the one who'd been so terrified of this vision all his life, so much it had driven him to break up with her when it was shown to him in the very beginning.

The image still haunted him, a millennium later. He'd never been able to shake it off, even if it had been ok for a while.

When Chibiusa wasn't born yet. When Chibiusa was a baby, a toddler. Her big eyes looking up at him in utter awe when he cradled her to him and told her stories of the Great Heroine Sailor Moon with flashlights under her sheets with them to make it more dramatic for her, and she'd gasped and giggled and ah-ed and she was so little he knew they were still safe. He knew that if it happened, she would be older than that.

She was the right age now, give or take. He couldn't be sure.

And so each night when he woke up at an odd hour and turn to watch Serenity sleep peacefully next to him, contorted in the most Usagi Tsukino way and glomped by a sleeping daughter who'd wandered into their bedroom sometime during the night like clockwork, he reached out and cradled her limp hand against his chest to calm his thudding hard from a nightmare he barely recalled.

Sometimes he hoped this was all more complicated. That he was just the poor unlucky sap of all those tons of alternate timeline-Mamorus. The one who'd had to have seen it so it could be changed, and so in his lifetime, it would never happen.

He hoped. He prayed. So hard. Because the alternative was petrifying. Time as an unbreakable loop. A loop in which despite the fact he knew what would happen, had seen the ruins of Crystal Tokyo and how it had come to be, had seen his wife lifeless and pale, had met his daughter as she'd had to flee across time on her own, had witnessed her being taken and brainwashed by the enemy —a violation he'd suffered too many times himself to not despair over it happening to his sweet girl— had seen himself remain in an empty barren world alone so long until he'd have to send his past self horrible dreams to start the circle all over again, looping and looping into all eternity.

Or the other scenario of his nightmares. Not a loop, and yet it would all happen. Nemesis would attack, but this time, Serenity would be killed, not sleeping. His daughter never returning from the dark abyss that was a Black Moon sigil on her forehead. Himself here, alone, a bodiless ghost forever staying in the ruins of his life to mourn the dead until he lost his mind.

Or what if this time it all happened, but it would just never stop? Their past selves never coming to help? What if he sent the dreams wrong, knowing the heartache they'd caused? What if he fucked it up because he knew too much? What if Usako would never wake up? What if knowing it would prevent it all from going well, even when it had to happen?

Sometimes he wished he didn't remember what might be to come. What might never come.

* * *

The next time Serenity found him too late in Ami's study, she brought hot cocoa and a cashmere blanket.

And while the mainframe searched the galaxy for the so illusive planet Nemesis because he couldn't let it go, she pressed against him in the wide-but-not- _that_ -wide armchair, blanket thrown across both their laps, both hands around her steaming cocoa mug and nudging him to drink his, too, and told him all the scandalous gossip about the two of them that Minako had found on social media again, and how Rei was sure half of it Minako had been posting there herself under different ridiculously obvious pseudonyms, all while the data ran.

He fell asleep against her shoulder, calm only in her arms.

The computer hadn't found anything this night, either.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANYWAY CT IS THE MOST DIFFICULT OF ALL THE SETTINGS, OK?! Still, I hope you like it, obviously, and I would love if you let me know what you thought!
> 
> And again, please check out all the other beautiful work posted on Antigone's tumblr, idesofnovember, for Usamamo Week! There's multi-chapters and stunning art and playlists and fic rec list and you will be finding treasure, I promise!


	5. Theme 5: Usagi & Mamoru

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here, out of order but as promised, the Usamamo prompt! (I just really wanted to go in canon order!) Thank you guys so much, againnnn, for those of you who drop me your lovely reviews! Honestly, thank you so much! I have this little "shrine" where I print out and frame my favorite reviews and fanart drawn to my fics, and some of the ones I've gotten for these are definitely going there! SO THANK YOU!
> 
> And also thank you to Antigone2, who's hosting this event this year, and also has been tirelessly cheerleading me through writing these the last few days! Thank you, love!

* * *

Memories  
A Series of Shortest Stories Written for Usamamo Week 2020

Theme 5: Usagi and Mamoru

* * *

They sat side by side, thighs touching and flush together on the little wooden bench in front of a chic Shibuya store window, spending the perfect day.

Usagi had spent half her Sega playcard balance beating Mamoru's ass at Mario Kart even though he normally only ever barely indulged her in these games (and yet this time, even seemed to enjoy himself!) He bought her a new dress unasked when she spotted it in the window, after she'd tried it on and fell in love, and now she sat in the coolest part of town eating Cremia (only the best ice cream in the world) next to the coolest boyfriend in the world, while they were people-watching.

It was bliss.

Though Mamoru seemed not too convinced about the coolness factor of it all, and at one point, had started commenting.

Ya know, all these girls in hipster shibuya clothes.

"Where are they _going_ in these outfits?" he hissed under his breath, eyes following two girls in matching metallic dresses. "Who WEARS this?"

She was about to bring up a pair of purple pleated pants, but he was on a roll.

"Like, this woman in the yellow wellies and the short sequined dress?" he half-whispered, nudging her in the side and pointing with his nose. "It's 1pm!"

Usagi snorted, licked her ice-cream, enjoyed the show.

Really, it was a perfect day. Blue skies and fluffy white clouds, glossy store window fronts with typewriters and vintage sewing machines as decor, experimental architecture between tall, pretty trees, people passing as they swung paper bags taped shut with decorative tape in the middle of the bag, strolling and chatting, and she got to eat the best ice cream in the world to it.

She beamed at him. He was precious. And he looked amazing in the sun, with those sunglasses, his stupidly long legs folded one over the other, his ice cream cone held in one hand with the most ridiculously elegant grip, that pretty arch in his wrist. Thick hair so black it shone blue in the bright sunlight, blue like the night sky. Smooth, perfect, creamy skin shining in the glare of the sun and stretching so attractively over the sharp bones of his jaw, lips deep red and flushed and glistening from the ice cream in a way that looked like she'd kissed him for a lifetime, like they were kiss-bruised and puckered for her.

Snow White had nothing on this pretty, pretty man of hers.

He turned his head, recoiled. "Or that one in the _leotard jumpsuit_?"

Usagi giggled. Chimed in. "Look at the girl with the giant gold fake-furball coat?"

She pointed. He furrowed his brows and lifted his eyes to squint against the glare of the sun.

"The big one? Looks like a tank?" she explained.

He leaned back. "The one with those cat eye glasses?" he asked.

She hmmed. The furball came closer. Usagi blinked. Flinched. Um.

"Ah," Usagi said. "Wait, that's Mina-P."

Mamoru tilted back his head and pretty much bellowed out a laugh. He _cackled_. It sounded awesome, even as she flinched again and raised her hand.

"HI, MINA-P!" she shouted across the street, waving her arm, while Mamoru was still laughing. He almost dropped his ice-cream doing so, and she nudged him in the arm.

He dutifully lifted it back to his mouth, snorting here and there, when Minako dodged traffic and engulfed Usagi in a hug, her eyes all curious silent communication over Mamoru's apparently spectacular mood, and Usagi shrugged.

Mamoru didn't even get his greeting out without snorting again, and Usagi's elbow hit him in the side again. He only shook harder, though more silent, and licked his ice cream.

"You're eating this stuff all the time too, now?" Minako asked offhandedly, closing up her phone and pocketing it.

Mamoru shrugged. "She got me hooked. Had to happen eventually," he grinned.

"You're in an awfully good mood, Chiba," she quirked her eye-brow.

"Just admiring the view," he said, and tried to keep a straight face this time.

Usagi nudged him again. "Hey," Usagi giggled, "Up close her coat is super cute! Look! Stop laughing!"

Minako's arms immediately stemmed into her hips. Offended. "You were making fun of my clothes?!"

Behind her, a crowd of noisy hipsters passed, all plaid and Birkenstocks and Fjällräven bags, and one of them nudged Minako's elbow and apologized in passing. She smiled and nodded it off.

"You look like a yeti wanted to cosplay as a ball of wool," Mamoru grinned. "Did Artemis dress you?"

Needless to say, Minako whirled back around to him with the biggest glare in existence.

"And it's 25 degrees, aren't you _warm_ in this?"

Usagi slapped his knee, which made Mamoru only grin wider, and Minako's face dissolved perhaps in the most appalled face she'd ever seen on her friend.

" _You_?" she said, lifting her glasses to the top of her head. "You? Really? Maboroshi no fashion sense Mamoru Chiba? _You_ are making fun of my clothes?" She pointed down at herself with a flowing hand gesture. "This is _Comme Des GARÇONS_! It's haute couture!"

"I _am_ making fun of your clothes," he grinned, and licked his ice-cream. He wasn't responding to her elbow jerks at _all_.

"Mamo-chan," Usagi hissed at the same time that Minako yelped, "It's from a shoot!"

Minako was about to retort, about to explode, but then she snapped her chin back, glared, one hand in her hip, and snatched Usagi's ice-cream out of her hand and licked at it.

Usagi gaped. _Speechless_. Mouth moving like a fish, eyes bugging out her head. Minako _stole her Cremia._

She was the enemy now. No forgiveness.

"You know what?" Minako said, eating stolen ice-cream, "I don't care what you say. I saw that Tiktok," she said haughtily. "Sailor Moon pajamas, Mamoru, really?"

Usagi whimpered, trying to get her ice-cream back. This day had suddenly turned into something utterly unfair!

...Until Mamoru wordlessly handed her his, not even looking, and she was in _love_.

"She made me," Mamoru said easily, but not without a glare.

"Elephants on parade. _And_ the tux doll. You got that choreo _down_ ," Minako tried to tease.

But Mamoru was the boss at teasing, and a proud tiktok cosplay-girl apparently, and so he just threw Minako one of those half-smiles and a shrug, and Usagi became kinda jealous. She scooted a bit closer against him, eating his ice-cream. It tasted better when it was his, anyway.

"What _ever_ ," Minako said eventually, lips pursed. "I'm a model. I know better than someone who wears jackets that look like they're his _dad's_."

Usagi inhaled so sharply she nearly got Cremia down the wrong tube, coughed violently, and threw wide, shocked, teared up eyes at Minako, who looked as shocked at her, but at Mamoru. Going pale.

"Oh my god," Minako and Usagi said at the same time, but in completely different tones.

Minako _did_ look super apologetic. Hand at her mouth. Moving closer. "I'm so sorry," she promised, sincerely, "I didn't _think—_ "

Usagi finally dared wide eyes to her side. His eyes were kind, but dimmed, and it hurt her soul. Gone was the fun banter, the exceptional mood.

He shrugged, smiled kindly, interrupted Minako. "It's totally ok."

Usagi was so horrified the ice-cream melted and Minako was really, really, really very sorry. She was.

Usagi was pissed anyway.

* * *

Usagi saw it in his eyes sometimes. When he remembered. Sometimes it was at odd times, other times it was more foreseeable, yet all of them were completely understandable.

In bed that one time when he was touching her throat gently and then froze completely when he realised what that looked like, eyes wide and trapped at her throat and his hand. His whole arm was petrified as he stared at the unmoving digits against her skin.

It had been hard getting him out of that state, that complete frozen panic. Her own heart had sped up seeing him like that.

She knew of course which memory it had triggered. His hand around her throat was the stuff of his nightmares. Sometimes he would wake up in a sweat, would turn around, cheeks wet, and press his damp face against her back, her hair, her belly, her breasts, and apologize until he choked on his sobs and fell back asleep completely exhausted. Often, he wouldn't even remember it had happened when he eventually woke up in the morning.

Other times it was the name Endymion spoken in casual conversation by the girls or the cats, and it broke her heart even more. While the bigger bulk of his memories of the time when he was Endymion were far and old, they were snippets like molasses somewhere in the back of your mind, so long ago that it was like trying to remember your 4th birthday and only coming up with a smell or the feeling of your hand in someone else's. In contrast, though fewer, the memories of the time he called himself Endymion under Queen Beryl's regency were fresh. Recent. Salient. Much, much fresher than the old ones, and thus, almost superimposing everything else.

For him, the name Endymion was associated with black roses, nearly killing her, haunting dreams of her death, and breaking up with her. It broke her heart, and she would give anything to change it all back and make him forget these things.

And then she'd feel guilty for even thinking these thoughts. Forgetting was his original trauma. One she'd inflicted upon him too. On all of them. She shouldn't ever think these things.

And sometimes, it was the forlorn look he'd have when she talked to her parents on the phone. When someone mentioned family-related things. Or when her father had invited him to dinner for the first time. Or when she saw him glance after men not much older than him carrying their kids in a sling around their torsos. The wistful expression on his face that was so full of yearning.

(Sometimes her heart whispered in the night. Maybe it was her fault he never got those missing memories back, too. He'd been looking for them. Before her. He never got them.)

It all pulled her protective heart wide open, made her want to take his hand and run with him into a magic land without hurt and headache and flick a magic wand and make it all better. And it made her feel so helpless that she couldn't. So instead, she'd wrap her hands around his middle from behind, press her face into his back and hold on.

* * *

She knelt on the floor and growled at the stupid automat. Pushed yet another set of three hundred yen coins into the slot, and turned the yellow plastic knob. It rumbled, dropped a round plastic ball, and she fished it out.

When she opened it, it was her third Sailor Mars, and she groaned.

Mamoru huffed, noisily leaned his shoulder against the stacked machines in front of her.

It was late, it was raining outside, and the ground was wet where she knelt on the floor in Akihabara in a little story filled floor to ceiling in narrow rows stacked with gashapon machines, but she _wanted a Tuxedo Mask. Ugh_.

She shook her little coin curse as if it was personally offending her, wordlessly thrust a 1000 yen bill at him, and while she pushed her last complete set of three 100 yen coins into the machine yet again, he rolled his eyes but dutifully went around the corner and fed her money to the coin changer.

When he walked back with a hand full of fresh silver money, (and yes she did notice it was 2000 yen instead of the 1000 she'd handed him), she was popping open the plastic ball of what turned out to be a second Sailor Moon.

She grunted. so. hard.

He crossed his arms, leaned back against the machines - the top one full of gudetama as they pouted off the ad in their little egg yolk, the other one yurii on ice.

"You know we can just go to Nakano Broadway and buy you a full set, right?" he sighed.

She glared up at him so fast and hard her hair whipped, and he held up his hand in that 'alright, alright'-fashion that meant utter defeat.

She hadn't fed this machine so much money _not to walk out with a little Mamo-chan, no way._

She chucked the offending Sailor Moon into her quickly filling up plastic bag of wrong Senshi, and fed the machine again.

It grumbled noisily and spit out another ball.

She held her breath when she popped it open carefully.

And let out somewhat of a little grunt-scream. Another Sailor Mars. While Mamoru couldn't help but snort at her reaction, she stuck out her tongue at little toy-Rei in much the same indignation as if she were the real thing.

She yanked up her sleeves, glared, and _punched_ her money into the gashapon machine.

The pink ball dropped, and when she opened it, _both_ her and Mamoru groaned in relief, even if at much different pitches.

 _YES_. Yes, yes, yes, yes, _yes_!

She held up her little toy Tuxedo Mask as if he was the most precious thing. And he _was_! That little _rose_!

She might have coo-ed a little too much, stroked her finger carefully over his little top hat, and Mamoru shook his head _very_ slowly indeed.

Fucking FINALLY.

She wriggled her butt, hopped a little on her knees, hopped a little more when she got up from her knees and onto her feet, and couldn't keep the joy from stretching her lips probably too wide. But _look_!

He looked so _cute_!

"Look at his little _rose_!" she gushed, breathless, mesmerized, and stuck her little Tux in Mamoru's face.

His smile, surprisingly, was super warm.

She flushed a little, and tucked her little Tux toy against her chest.

He spread his large, clear plastic umbrella open the second they walked out, and held it over her (because when had Tsukino Usagi ever remembered to bring an umbrella, even in the middle of rainy season?), and together they walked down the bright streets that was Akihabara in the night, the rain turning the asphalt into technicolor projectors of the neon lights, the sound distorted by the rush of cars on wet ground.

She sighed, glomped his arm, little Tuxedo Mask in her fist as she threw the doubles in a separate plastic sack. She'd just give them to the girls.

When suddenly he stopped, reached out, and fished the second Sailor Moon back out from between tiny Mako-chan and her quadrillion of Reis.

His smile was still so soft. Even though he wasn't looking directly at her.

"...can i have this one?" he asked softly, one side of his lips quirked in a look she knew so well, but he directed it at her little toy-version. It was doing that hand gesture she always did during her speeches, her little toy face in a little super-determined ':o'.

And she smiled back perhaps the hardest she'd ever smiled. Glomped his arm again.

"Sure," she beamed, and he finally looked at her, that one side of his lips still quirked up, and rolled his eyes affectionately even as he pocketed his new tiny Moon Senshi.

But it was on the way up to their platform that it happened again.

They'd just beeped their IC cards through the turnstiles, walking through Akihabara JR station, when his eyes got distracted. Turned wistful when he watched a father try to shush his quite hyperactive little daughter as they walked up the steps in front of them, then queued in line for the train.

He'd _just_ been so _happy_.

Her heart clenched painfully, and on the train, she looked at her little Tux much more sadly. Mamoru didn't even notice.

They ended up walking from Tamachi station all the way to Azabujuban, her hand in his the entire time as they walked through the dark streets. It had stopped raining, but the streets were still wet, and Tokyo Tower illuminated the canvas that was a wet street at night to their right just like the neon signs of the conbinis and chain restaurants did, and she was both lost in thought and anxious to say something.

It always made her feel so _helpless_.

Her heart thudded in her chest.

"It's my fault a bit," she finally said.

He blinked. Stopped. Looked at her utterly confused.

His eyes widened a bit when he saw her face. She guessed he truly _hadn't_ noticed her change of mood.

"You wanted them back," she said, dejectedly and to her feet. Shrugged pitifully.

"Usako," he said, frowning. "What in the _world_ are you talking about?"

"Your memories," she said, frowning.

He nearly dropped his umbrella. Caught it at the last second. His eyebrows had flown to his hairline, and a ray of light moved over his form with the rushing headlights of a passing car next to them. He tucked the umbrella underneath his arm.

She shrugged one shoulder, "You were searching for them and didn't get them," she pouted. Kicked her shoe at nothing. "Instead you got, well, me," she sighed.

When she raised her eyes at him again, he looked more appalled than he ever had.

She shrunk a little.

It took a moment for him to say something. He looked at her completely perplexed, and slightly… she couldn't place that. Stern. Intense. Maybe a little thrown.

"Where is this coming from?" he asked.

She shrugged again, started walking. But he touched her arm, and she stopped again.

"Usako."

She sighed.

"You keep looking at families and then you get sad," she mumbled.

His eyebrows, somehow, rose even higher.

"And you get so sad already. And you wanted them so much, and I—"

"Usako," he said, softer now. Stepped closer, touched her sleeve again.

Her heart thudded. He exhaled slowly, and tenderly brushed his arm down her sleeve, pinched the fabric near her elbow, watched his hand move against her.

He sighed, frowned. Licked his lips. He was mulling over what to say, how to phrase something. She knew that look.

"I—" he started. Stopped. Frowned. Started again. "I learned that some memories are painful," he said, and his eyelashes flicked up as he looked her in the eyes again. It jolted through her a bit.

"I learned that I probably don't need all of them."

She frowned, hard. Opened her mouth to argue, but he interrupted her.

"Usako…" he said with a softer frown. "I'm not looking at families because I'm sad I don't have one."

Uh… what?

She blinked up at him, utterly thrown. But then what— What did he—

He tilted his head to one side. "I do have one. I'm looking at families because I can't wait to have mine. With you. One day."

Her eyes shot open wide, and really, her heart felt like it was punched. Punched just like the coins into the gashapon machine, and she noticed she was still clutching her little Tuxedo Mask against her heart.

But… But…!

"I don't need my missing memories anymore," he said slowly.

"You _don't_?" she managed, incredulous.

This… really wasn't what she had expected.

He shrugged.

"I'm making new memories, Usako." And then he reached up, pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and smiled that same warm smile at her again, the one from the gashapon hall. The one from sitting outside and eating Cremia. The one he gave her when she gushed over the finished video she'd forced him to dance to.

And god, her heart was going a mile a minute.

He brushed his index finger down the apple of her cheek.

"The best ones," he smiled. "Tiktok addiction and four times Sailor Mars and all."

And still that smile, and poking her nose, and she couldn't breathe.

He pulled her by the hand, and pulled her home. His home. Their home, eventually. Where they were going to make all the best memories. One day at a time.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol so yeah, this was, as Antigone2 called it "unforgivingly fluffy". I know lol. At least one of these has gotta be, right?
> 
> Anyway, this is the next to last one. I'm skipping one of the themes, so you get six. So, see you tomorrow, hopefully! And if you enjoyed this, I would adore you forever if you told me about it!


	6. Theme 6: AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's the end of Usamamo Week 2020, and it kind of breaks my heart! This year was somehow especially special, and I've never valued all your company more! Anyway, here's one more memory!

* * *

Memories  
A Series of Shortest Stories Written for Usamamo Week 2020

Theme 6: AU

* * *

The beeping wasn't particularly shrill, but it rose steadily in volume and was hell-bent on irritating the fuck out of her. She frowned. Glared into her pillow. Whined.

After a little while of this steady torture, the light switched on around her, because, ya know, the world was mean and cruel and all that. Usagi flipped the covers over her head and fell back asleep, beeping be damned.

She woke again when it changed in speed. And _growled_.

"You need to get up." His voice was a personified eye-roll.

She glared harder, eyes scrunched closed, burrowed her whole body in the mattress, sheets, and pillows, and mumbled something into it that was meant to be 'five more minutes,' but probably not very understandable at all. But she did fall back into a restless sleep and just incorporated both the beeping and Mamoru's eye-rolls into whatever rubbish was still left of her last dream.

"Usako."

His voice turned into that scolding tone she knew too well. And when she opened her eyes, blinking and swollen and bleary, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed impeccably, and somewhere between impatient and amused.

"Alright, alright," she groused, and proceeded to crawl out of bed trying to dodge the aches in her body as if she was eighty or something.

She padded, swaying and whining, into the cubicle on the left of her bed. The light switched on automatically, startling her as always, and she didn't close the door when she peed.

She did take her time a little. Carefully bunched her hair together into a messy bun because she didn't want to wash it this morning, knowing she'd have to do so later anyway, but sat on her little yellow plastic stool and sighed blissfully when the warm spray of the shower hit her body.

Mamoru's eyes pointily looked at the digital clock projected to the wall when she came back out, but she ignored it. Instead, she stopped in front of the full length mirror in the white terry-cloth towel and started to brush out her hair.

Then she frowned, ran a hand through one long strand, and glared at it a little.

"It's getting lighter," she sighed, and frowned at it a little harder. The strands were slowly turning silver. And not the normal-life 'old' kind of silver.

"It is," Mamoru said easily. And when she looked up from her hair, he stood right behind her, hands in his pockets, eyes warm and reassuring.

She met his eyes in the mirror, and pouted.

"Do you still like it?" she asked.

He'd always loved her hair. And now it was changing.

He tilted his head, smiled softly and as if she was being a bit stupid. "I'd always love your hair, Usako. No matter the color."

She shyly smiled back.

Carefully, she unwrapped the towel, flinching when the movement hurt her.

Mamoru stepped closer to the blooming concern on his face, hands fluttering towards her reactively.

"You're still hurting," he frowned.

And yeah, she shouldn't. She was healing too slowly. Slower than she should. With careful hands, she brushed her fingertips along the edges of the biggest bruise. It fanned out in clouds and spirals of greens and purples and yellows and blues. Tiny galaxies painted on her skin.

She pressed her lips into a sad smile and caught his eyes in the mirror. He was all sorrow. Not a good look on a man who was standing behind a stark naked woman, at least in her personal opinion.

With a sigh, she trudged to the dresser, pulled out a pair of fresh underwear.

"Just a bit," she said too nonchalantly. "I'll be fine." And then she flinched again when she contorted to awkwardly move the fabric up her legs.

His eyes kept their irritated hue.

"You're stretching yourself thin, Usako."

She shrugged, pulled out a cotton bra. "Chaos doesn't beat itself, Mamo-chan."

He just pressed his lips together and looked even sterner.

She shrugged again, put on pants, bent with a flinch to get her towel and threw it in the general direction of the hamper and missed, but he said nothing for once.

Only when she rummaged in the top drawer with an increasing frown, did he speak again.

"Bathroom," he reminded her.

Ah.

She walked back into the bathroom, startled again when the lights flicked on and the door opened itself. Strange, strange intergalactic senshi tech. She would never get used to this. She had enough trouble with a computer, nevermind a fucking space ship. And door handles obviously were all out.

She did emerge with her bobby pins though, and moved a little more carefully around her bruises. And when her odangos were back in, and she felt at least a tiny bit like herself again, she rummaged through her pile of clean clothing that she hadn't bothered putting away, and shrugged a white sweater over her head.

It left her hair a bit electrified, sticking out, and she huffed when Mamoru smirked over her shoulder.

" _30 minutes to destination,"_ came the bodiless announcement through the speakers, the AI voice disconcertingly pleasantly fake.

With another frown, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. White shirt, white pants, white tiny cubicle of a room, hair growing whiter and whiter.

She pouted. "I look like a ghost," she told Mamoru in the reflection of the mirror, and he walked back up to her, stopped flush behind her, and smelled her hair. Then he winked over her head.

"Then we match." He smiled.

It throbbed in her heart.

But she didn't have time to dwell on it. With a rattle, the automatic door to her cubicle opened. Seiya popped his head in.

He frowned at her, and at the way she stood in front of the mirror.

"We're almost there," he said apologetically. "Are you feeling any better?"

Usagi nodded. Gave herself a last glance.

But Seiya was frowning harder, looking around her room.

"Were you talking to anyone?" Seiya asked. "I thought I heard you talking."

She sighed, her eyes flitting behind her.

Of course, there was no one in the room with her. Only the dead.

"Just to myself," she said with a choked up throat.

Patiently, Seiya looked at her. Waited a beat. Eyes dripping in pity. Only when she didn't say anything, she finally received a nod. She nodded back.

The Sailor Senshi that left her cubicle in her place was clad all in white, too, except for nine colorful stripes flowing from a winged golden emblem on the front of her skirt.

"Ready?" Sailor Star Maker asked as she entered the bridge. Out front, the stars waited in a mix of pitch darkness and swirling colors, rushing by faster than her eyes could pick them up individually.

"Ready," Sailor Cosmos sighed.

Her next rendevouz with Chaos was waiting yet again.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote this yesterday afternoon, and the second I was done I went on tumblr to find nari20's utterly FANTASTIC Sailor Cosmos art. It's uncanny how much this fits, how much she read my mind. So if you want PERFECT fanart for this setting, head over to nari20 and see what she did for usamamoweek yesterday! It's spectacular!
> 
> Anyway, Sailor Cosmos is of course an AU in itself. The canon Sailor Cosmos one that came back from a past where everyone died in the manga stars arc to come back in time and change history. So this is the tragic, tragic (canon)-AU I chose for this. I like to think she'll have the Starlights for at least a little while at the beginning of her long, long lonely journey, until they too fall. But even when she's alone, I'd think she'll never stop talking to Mamoru in her mind.
> 
> So, this was it! Last theme for me, concluding this tiny adventure. I hoped you had fun. Antigone2 is putting together a little master post so you won't miss anything, but please check out what everyone else has done for usamamoweek! It's all on her tumblr: idesofnovember. And I'm so, so grateful to Antigone2 for stepping up and hosting this event this year! Seeing everyone active together and creating content is absolutely amazing, and makes me feel intensely connected, especially in a time where social events are so very scarce! So THANK YOU!
> 
> And thank all of you for reading, and if you enjoyed it, I'd love to hear from you down there in my review box! I'll see you in the next fic!

**Author's Note:**

> There you go! I hope you enjoyed this somewhat more subtle bit of angst lol. I guess lack of comfort is something a lot of us can imagine well right now?
> 
> Anyway. I might mix up the prompts, and leave one or two out. I'm doing this on the fly lol. So please bear with me.


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